Edtech Insiders

Join us as we sit down with three high school seniors who are Research Assistants at the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab. They share their insights on the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and its effect on youth today. In this episode, our guests discuss how AI is currently shaping their lives and education, their concerns and hopes for the future of AI, and their ideas for policies and tools to help young people navigate these changes. Siya Verma of Quarry Lane School, focused on global public policy, technology policy, and economics. Sophie Yang from Lynbrook High School, passionate about economics, public policy, and law. Dev Krishnamoorthy from Saratoga High School, interested in computer science and political science. Listen as Siya, Sophie, and Dev discuss how their work and academic interests inform their understanding of AI's role in shaping future policy and education frameworks!

Join Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they explore pivotal topics in this Week in Edtech episode: 👓 Meta's new VR OS strategy—will it create a new tech rivalry? 🤖 The growing role of AI in Meta's apps: innovation or irritation? 🏆 Age of Learning earns a spot in TIME's Top EdTech Companies of 2024 💼 Anthology raises $250M for strategic growth in EdTech 🌱 Insights from the Co-Founder at JuneX Capital Partners on the future of educational funding Plus special guests, Rebecca Kockler of Magpie Literacy and Kristen Huff & Amelia Kelly of Curriculum Associates and SoapBox Labs Don’t forget to subscribe to Edtech Insiders for more updates and insights from the forefront of educational technology!

Jonathan Libov is the CEO & Founder of Antimatter Systems which seeks to bridge the gap between how students learn in the classroom and how people learn in the real world using a suite of modern AI tools for formative assessment, like student-created memes, text message conversations and socratic dialogue with LLMs. Antimatter has recently launched the pilot of their Universe Program, which gives students the opportunity to teach the world and learn how to lead online. Before founding Antimatter in 2021, Jonathan has spent his career in and around startups as a product executive and investor. Recommended Resources: 🤖 Replit by Amjad Masad 🤖 Synthesis by Chrisman Frank

Elyse Klaidman, after 22 years at Pixar leading creative and educational programs, is now the CEO of X IN A BOX, where she leverages her background as an artist, educator and leader. Prior to co-founding X IN A BOX in 2020, Tony DeRose led the computer graphics research group for much of his 23 years at Pixar. He is passionate about project based learning and has been very active in the Maker Movement. Brit Cruise, Chief Learning Officer at X IN A BOX and creator of educational content and products, launched his career with the YouTube channel Art of the Problem, leading to working at Khan Academy and partnerships with NASA, Google, and Disney/Pixar. Dennis Henderson, VP of Education and Strategy at X IN A BOX, leverages his role as Executive Director of Manchester Youth Development Center to drive social justice through project-based education, promoting social mobility and economic opportunities. Recommended Resources: 📖 Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace 📺 Art of the Problem Youtube Channel by Brit Cruise 📖 The Children's Machine: Rethinking School In The Age Of The Computer by Seymour Papert

Join Alex Sarlin and guest host, Alberto Arenaza, Co-founder at Transcend Network as they explore pivotal topics in this Week in Edtech episode: 👩‍🏫 The latest in K-12 challenges and digital threats, 📚 Biden’s big moves in student debt relief, 🌐 Duolingo’s strategic expansion into China's booming Edtech market, 🔧 The fierce competition in AI chip technology among Nvidia, Google, and Intel, 🎓 Insights on workforce trends affecting college graduates, 💼 Significant funding and M&A activities shaking up the sector. Plus special guests, Hayley Spira-Bauer and Ysiad Ferreiras from Fullmind. Don’t forget to subscribe to Edtech Insiders for more updates and insights from the forefront of educational technology!

Jeff Wetzler has been on a quarter-century quest to transform learning opportunities. Blending a unique set of leadership experiences in the fields of business and education, he’s pursued this quest as a management consultant to the world’s top corporations, as a learning facilitator for leaders around the world, as Chief Learning Officer at Teach For America, and most recently, as co-CEO of Transcend, a nationally recognized innovation organization. Jeff earned a Doctorate in Adult Learning and Leadership from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Brown University. He is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and is an Edmund Hillary Fellow. He lives in New York with his wife, two children, and their puppy. Recommended Resources: AskApproach.comHow to Get the Honest Input You Need from Your Employees -AskApproach

In this episode of Week in Edtech, Alex and Ben discuss: 1. AI Business Schools Are Going All In on AIEducators divided over AI's impactAI concerns grow even as more teachers adopt the technology2. BigTech Microsoft's $100 billion 'Stargate' datacenter for OpenAI may be AI's 'Star Wars' momentOpenAI Unveils A.I. Technology That Recreates Human Voices OpenAI built a voice cloning tool, but you can’t use it… yet3. K-12 Kids Missing school at an alarming rateA New Federal Taskforce Targets Cybersecurity in Schools4. Edtech Edtech funding hits new lowBijal Shah named Guild CEO, Rachel Carlson goes public with health concerns5. M&A & Funding Modal Announces $25 Million Series A to Upskill Employees in AISpecial Guest: Alexa von TobelInspired Capital

Gabi Immelman is the founder and CEO of edtech start-up , Mindjoy, a platform for STEM teachers to 10x their impact for boundless classroom learning through unleashing student curiosity with the power of AI tutors. With Mindjoy, teachers can transform lessons they love and know using the power of AI to create engaging digital first learning experiences for their students. A former Reggio-educator turned EdTech founder with experience working globally in Africa & USA. Mindjoy is the third company she has founded - her first being a stick-on tattoo parlor at the beach where we used to go for summer vacation when I was a child. Carine Marette is the co-founder and co-CEO of Kritik, an online peer-to-peer interactive learning platform designed for professors to engage students in a twenty-first-century way. Through a gamified experience, Kritik allows students to develop higher-order thinking skills from creating assignments as well as analyzing and evaluating peer submissions. In addition, students will develop the skills necessary to deliver feedback to their peers through our feedback-on-feedback system. They are using AI and artificial intelligence to increase the reliability of peer assessment and save instructors time.

In this episode of Week in Edtech, Alex and Michelle discuss: 1. AI OpenAI is pitching Sora to Hollywoodon a Hollywood charm offensive before launching its Sora video generatorAI May Be Coming for Standardized TestingTeachers Desperately Need AI Training. How Many Are Getting It? 2. BigTech Spotify Throws Its Hat in the Edtech Ring3. K-12 K-12 Hybrid Schooling Is in High DemandSteve Daly from Instructure on “Learning Deserts”LAUSD bets big on AI chatbot “Ed"4. Edtech GoStudent, now profitableMcGraw Hill Introduces ALEKS Adventure5. Higher Ed Universities Build Their Own ChatGPT-like Tools6. M&A & Funding Packback Raises Funding From PSG EquityGG4L Secures $18M In Capital FundingCornerstone Acquires TalespinSmartschool raises $1.5M for AI test prepSpecial Guest: Betsy CorcoranLede Labs

Julia Dixon is the Founder and CEO of ESAI (pronounced [ES] + [AY] + [EYE]), the first-of-its-kind generative AI platform for college applicants and young professionals. As a former college advisor, Julia saw a major inequality emerging as only the wealthiest families could afford resources for their students to stand out and get into the most competitive colleges and universities. She created ESAI to help level the playing field, so students of all backgrounds and resources could have a fair shot at telling their unique stories. Recommended Resources: Rebecca Jennings, Vox Embedded by Kate Lindsay Zine by Matt Klein

In this episode of Week in Edtech, Alex and Ben discuss: 1. AI OpenAI ChatGPT + Humanoid Robot = Figure01NVIDIA Launches Latest AI Chips and Software at Developer ConferenceApple in talks with Google to embed Google Gemini behind AI features in the iPhoneApple Quietly Launches First Multimodal AI Model, MM1Elon Musk and xAI open-source Grok2. K12 3. Higher Ed The SAT Is Coming Back At Some Colleges. It’s Stressing Everyone Out.4. Workforce Special Guests: Pat YongpraditCode.org TeachAIQuinn TaberImmerse

When Alejandro Gibes de Gac was 7, his family immigrated to the US seeking educational opportunities for their children. His parents’ tireless efforts enabled Alejandro and his sister to overcome their circumstances and pursue their dreams. Alejandro published two books by 14 and was admitted to Harvard by 16. After graduating from college, Alejandro joined Teach For America and became a first grade teacher in Philadelphia. There he became frustrated that the school system treats marginalized parents as liabilities, rather than as assets. Alejandro founded Springboard Collaborative more than a decade ago to close the literacy gap by bridging the gap between home and school. Springboard runs out-of-school time programs that help teachers and parents team up to improve reading outcomes for 35K+ students across the country. While continuing to lead Springboard, Alejandro recently co-founded the edtech startup Paloma. Paloma harnesses AI to unleash parents’ untapped teaching potential. Their mobile web app helps marginalized families build and sustain a habit: 15 daily minutes of short-burst tutoring at home. (Imagine parents sitting with their kids and engaging in curriculum-aligned instruction every night.) By the time students enter middle school, families that do their Daily 15 throughout elementary school will have given their kids the equivalent of an entire extra year of school! Alejandro’s career is guided by a singular objective: to close the opportunity gap by making parent-teacher collaboration standard practice in American education. Recommended Resources: Lenny's Newsletter

Andrew Sachs is a retired successful tech entrepreneur with a passion for wanting to make the world a better place for others. With three wonderful kids and a teacher-wife, Andrew saw how school and university were not preparing our youth with the needed technical, soft and leadership skills they needed to thrive in today’s quickly changing world. Having benefited from excellent teachers and continuous learning in the context of high-performing global project teams in his professional career, he’s now dedicated to providing that same opportunity for aspiring youth all over the globe regardless of income or place of birth. Andrew founded Nobel Navigators which has grown from 6 youth leaders in 2019 to thousands across 142 countries in 2024. Emine Naz Can is a change agent passionate about helping youth get the skills needed to succeed in work in life. Co-founder of Paridoc Academy to help 100+ Turkish youth learn and grow during the pandemic. Internship in Nobel Learning where she has developed sales, negotiation and networking programs to help youth around the world get free learning to the technical, soft skills and leadership skills needed in work and life. Halil Kale Science HS graduate, enrolled at Bahcesehir University as an aspiring engineer. Ready to change the world. Recommended Resources: Edtech Insiders Broken: How Our Social Systems are Failing Us and How We Can Fix Them by Dr. Paul LeBlanc

Edtech Insiders joined the first Common Sense Summit on America's Kids and Families hosted by Common Sense Media at Pier 27 in San Francisco on January 28–30. The conference brought together advocates, researchers, youth leaders, policymakers, and other experts to take stock of America's kids and families and explore solutions to the most pressing issues across four core topic areas: kids and technology, youth mental health, early childhood education, and K–12 education. In this special episode (Part 2), Alex and Ben interviews: Rajen ShethKyron LearningRichard BueryRobin HoodAlex BriscoeCalifornia Children's Trust Special Episode: Postcards from Common Sense Summit on America's Kids and Families (Part 1) here:

In this episode of Week in Edtech, Alex and Ben discuss: 1. AI Claude 3 Opus by Anthropic Inside the Funding Frenzy at Anthropic, One of A.I.’s Hottest Start-UpsGoogle partners with Reddit in AI content licensing deal2. Big Tech Nvidia reaches $2T market capNvidia Hardware Is Eating the World"Don't Learn to Code, But Study This Instead..." says NVIDIA CEO Jensen HuangSpecial Guests: Kelly SiaCurriculum AssociatesMalia BurnsOpenSeatFaiza JacksonOpen SeatErin MayhoodMentor Collective

Tom Sayer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ello, the world's first virtual reading coach that works with real books. Before Ello, Tom was the head of impact and adoption programs at Google for Education, where his team was responsible for ensuring that Google tools were used effectively in classrooms worldwide. He is on the advisory board of Education Reimagined, the movement builder of learner centered education. He has also worked as an intelligence officer, a product manager, founded an EdTech company (with Catalin), and has built a mini-golf course in Cambodia. Tom graduated from Cambridge University with first-class honors in maths and psychology and has an MBA and MA (Education) from Stanford. He has won the Lamor prize at Cambridge, the Queen’s medal at Sandhurst, the Intelligence top student award, and was a Siebel Scholar at the GSB. He loves running, rugby, and lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania. Recommended Resources: GSV: AI & EducationWhat is Learner-centered Education

Edtech Insiders joined the first Common Sense Summit on America's Kids and Families hosted by Common Sense Media at Pier 27 in San Francisco on January 28–30. The conference brought together advocates, researchers, youth leaders, policymakers, and other experts to take stock of America's kids and families and explore solutions to the most pressing issues across four core topic areas: kids and technology, youth mental health, early childhood education, and K–12 education. In this special episode, Alex and Ben interviews: Nicholas KristofNew York TimesSteve YoungwoodSesame WorkshopAttorney General of CaliforniaRob BontaJohn DeasyBezos Family FoundationCarla SmallEarlyBird EducationSpecial Episode: Postcards from Common Sense Summit on America's Kids and Families (Part 2) here:

Max Azarov is an experienced entrepreneur in the IT industry. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) where he studied at the School of Physics and Mathematics, and he holds an MBA from the University of Massachusetts. Max built his career in IT product management and software development across Russia and the USA, working for Cyber Vision, Digital 5, Google and LG Electronics. As a product manager for Google, Max was responsible for the global product as well as the Russian/CIS markets (Google Search and Google Maps). Products in his portfolio generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue. This experience was crucial for Max’s skills as a team leader and software developer, but he always wanted to use his IT knowledge to build his own business. In 2013, Max launched his first startup with Dmitry Malin: Cloudike, a cloud storage solution (white label) for carriers and service-providers, such as Vodafon, Vestel, and others. His IT background, along with a passion for the EdTech industry gained from teaching English to his own children, led to the idea of a digital English learning platform. In 2017, Max co-founded Novakid in Silicon Valley (USA) with Dmitry Malin. NovaKid is a Series B EdTech startup ($41,5M raise) and was ranked at #105 on the 2023 Inc 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in America (1st in the education category). This online English as a Second Language learning platform for children aged 4 to 12 has delivered over 14 million English lessons for kids since inception in 2017. Recommended Resources: Edtech Insiders GSV N2K Brighteye TechCrunch

Edtech Insiders joined the first Common Sense Summit on America's Kids and Families hosted by Common Sense Media at Pier 27 in San Francisco on January 28–30. The conference brought together advocates, researchers, youth leaders, policymakers, and other experts to take stock of America's kids and families and explore solutions to the most pressing issues across four core topic areas: kids and technology, youth mental health, early childhood education, and K–12 education. In this special episode, Alex and Ben interviews Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

In this episode of Week in Edtech, Ben and Alex discuss: 1. AI OpenAI Completes Deal That Values the Company at $80 BillionOpenAI’s SoraRivals In The Works—Including From Google And Meta2. Edtech Online course provider 2U faces doubts it can continue3. PreK-12 Unleashed Brands to Acquire Sylvan Learning4. Reports Reach Capital’s 2023 US EdTech Funding Report Special Guest: Matt Sherman LSAT Lab